Forced reset triggers do one thing. As soon as you fire the gun, it forces the trigger to reset so you can follow up with another shot very quickly.
Some people seem to think that being able to shoot quickly is a bad thing.
Unfortunately, some of those people apparently work at the ATF and now Rare Breed, a company that makes forced reset triggers, is dealing with the agency in court.
Also, unfortunately, their case had a setback on Tuesday.
The U.S. government on Tuesday won a court injunction blocking a firearms company from selling after-market triggers that let gun enthusiasts convert AR-15 style rifles into weapons that can shoot as fast as machine guns.
U.S. District Judge Nina Morrison in Brooklyn said the Department of Justice was likely to prove that the “forced-reset triggers” sold by Rare Breed Triggers LLC and its owners were illegal machine guns under federal law.
The government said rifles equipped with Rare Breed’s FRT-15 triggers were capable of firing faster than military-grade M-16 machine guns, which can fire at least 700 rounds a minute.
In a 129-page decision, Morrison said the defendants defrauded customers by saying its FRT-15s were “absolutely” legal, despite having failed to win Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives approval for their sale.
She also highlighted alleged efforts by Fargo, North Dakota-based Rare Breed to obstruct the government from tracking and confiscating the devices, including by destroying sales records and using fake names on packages sent through the mail.
“Defendants declined to seek ATF classification of the FRT-15 and instead simply assure RBT’s customers that the device was ‘legal’ precisely because they knew that allowing ATF to examine their device before bringing it to market might kill their proverbial golden goose,” the judge wrote.
Morrison, a Biden appointee, seems to simply assume that the ATF is right here, that making a gun shoot faster somehow makes it a machine gun.
One would think, however, that a federal judge would at least look up the definition of a machine gun in federal law.
From the National Firearms Act:
(b) Machinegun. The term ‘machinegun’ means any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single 95 function of the trigger. The term shall also include the frame or receiver of any such weapon, any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun, and any combination of parts from which a machinegun can be assembled if such parts are in the possession or under the control of a person.
Here’s the thing, though. Forced reset triggers don’t fire multiple rounds with a single pull of the trigger. It simply allows one to pull the trigger much faster.
Morrison seemingly claims that because the forced reset triggers allow one to shoot as fast as a machine gun, it should be regulated as such, but the law makes no such case.
In other words, she’s taking the ATF’s made-up crap as actual law and saying the government would likely win the case based on that made-up crap.
I fail to see how she can say such a thing, though. I’m not an attorney, mind you, but it seems rather bizarre to argue that the government will win on a case where they claim a device turns a rifle into a machine gun when the device does nothing to change the weapon in any way that meets the legal definition of a machine gun.
Then again, as a Biden appointee, it’s unlikely that Morrison is really that concerned with the actual law when it comes to restricting what ordinary Americans can own with regard to firearms and accessories.
